Football tactics can be as complicated as you want to make them.
At the very top of the game, there are analysts studying opposition patterns, coaches working on different phases of play and managers developing systems with terminology that would probably leave most of us reaching for Google.
That's not really the world we're trying to recreate.
This is non-league football.
You're managing players who might have spent the day at work before turning up for an evening fixture. Sometimes one of them doesn't turn up at all because their day job has got in the way. Training time is limited, resources are limited and, particularly as you head further down the pyramid, football can be wonderfully uncomplicated. Our tactics system reflects that.
You won't be building a gegenpress or asking your Step 6 full-back to become an inverted wing-back when you've got the ball. There are no individual player roles or duties to spend hours configuring.
Instead, we give you the decisions we think matter: How are you going to line up? How do you want your team to play? What's your mentality? And who are you actually sending onto the pitch?
Then it's time for football.
It starts with your formation.
There are plenty of shapes available, from the familiar 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 through to three and five-at-the-back systems, giving you the freedom to find something that suits the players at your disposal.
Maybe you've built your squad around a 4-2-3-1. Maybe you've got two strikers you simply have to play together. Maybe you've arrived at a club, looked at the squad you've inherited and realised your preferred formation isn't going to work at all.
That's management.
And at this level, sometimes your formation isn't dictated by some grand footballing philosophy. Sometimes it's dictated by who is available on Saturday afternoon.
Once you've chosen your shape, there are two big decisions to make about how you want to approach the match.
First comes mentality. You can choose between Defensive, Cautious, Balanced, Attacking and All-Out Attack. You don't need a coaching qualification to understand what we're asking you here.
Are you heading away to the league leaders and expecting a difficult afternoon? Perhaps caution is the order of the day. Facing a side you think you should beat? You might want to take the initiative. Chasing an equaliser with the clock disappearing? There's always All-Out Attack.
It's a straightforward choice, but it's one you'll find yourself reconsidering as matches unfold.
Then comes your playing style. Again, we've deliberately kept the language rooted in football rather than filling the screen with dozens of instructions.
You have five options:
Possession. Direct. Long Ball. Counter-Attack. Wing Play.
That's it. Want your side looking after the ball? Tell them. Got a big striker up front and fancy getting the ball towards him? You know what to choose. Want to sit in and attack when the opportunity presents itself? Counter-Attack is there. Got dangerous players out wide? Get them involved.
And if your idea of football is getting it forward and worrying about the consequences afterwards, we've got you covered too.
We're not interested in telling you there's one correct way to play.
Sometimes pretty football works. Sometimes the pitch is horrible, it's blowing a gale and the most effective tactical instruction available to you is essentially get it up there. Find what works for your squad.
Of course, having a tactical masterplan is one thing.
Finding eleven players to carry it out is another. Your line-up is laid out on the pitch, with your substitutes underneath, giving you a clear picture of the side you're about to send out.
You can build the team yourself or use Auto-pick when you want the game to help put a side together.
And this is where the realities of managing at this level can start interfering with your plans. The player you wanted might be unavailable. Someone could be carrying a knock. Your squad might simply not have the perfect player for the position you need. And, yes, somebody might have to work.
We've already shown how day jobs form part of the game.
Your players have lives outside football and their availability can change. That carefully planned XI isn't much use when Tuesday comes around and several members of it can't make the match. So you adapt.
Perhaps you change personnel. Perhaps that means changing your formation. Perhaps you abandon what you intended to do altogether.
There are smaller decisions to make as well. Penalty takers can be selected and ordered from your squad, with useful information such as their Finishing and Decisions attributes displayed alongside them.
Fancy making the decision yourself? Build your list.
Not interested? Leave it alone, and the game can choose a suitable taker for you.
It's another example of the approach we've taken throughout the tactics screen. The control is there when you want it, without demanding that you manage every tiny detail before you're allowed to play a match.
Your plan might not work. You might concede early. You might unexpectedly find yourself protecting a lead. An injury can force your hand, or you might simply look at what's happening and decide you've seen enough.
Change it.
Switch the formation. Change your approach. Make substitutions. Become more adventurous or shut things down. If you're a goal behind late on, that All-Out Attack option suddenly starts looking rather tempting.
Whether it works is another matter. That's football.
The aim with tactics has never been to build a system where you need to understand dozens of roles, duties, pressing triggers and phases of possession before you can enjoy managing a football team.
There's a place for that kind of management game. This isn't it.
This is non-league football.